


tell me some things last

by nicheinhischest



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: I posted this at like 4am RIP, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-06
Updated: 2017-04-06
Packaged: 2018-10-15 09:16:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10553842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nicheinhischest/pseuds/nicheinhischest
Summary: Adam's learned to mark his relationship with Ronan through touch: how it changed over time, how it lingered, how it settled him whenever his mind threatened to fall apart on him. Sometimes he tries to figure out when it becamemore, overwhelming, Adam consumed with love for this boy, this man who touches him, gentle in a way he is with no one else, not even Gansey.





	

**Author's Note:**

> There may be some inconsistencies; I wrote this before Raven King came out. Also I posted this at 4am without double checking it flowed wll _for why_

* * *

[heal - tom odell](https://youtu.be/55RVS3MW2aQ)

* * *

The first time Ronan touches Adam with any kind of intent, it’s a smack to the space between his shoulder blades. An attempt at friendliness that lands a bit too hard, because Gansey is still wide-eyed and exhilarated at the prospect of having someone new and inquisitive around. Adam flinches on instinct, a response he will never lose any time he sees a hand fly at him, regardless of context.

The Tuesday after that, Ronan and Gansey pick him up from the edge of the trailer park. They’ve coming off the end of a long holiday weekend, weary at the thought of returning to school, and it takes them half the drive and a long red light to notice the ugly, fading bruise under Adam’s eye, already yellowing with age. Gansey makes a startled sound and opens his mouth. Then he sees the look Adam gives him, jaw tight, shame splashed red across his cheeks, and closes it.

The light turns green. The Pig idles and then rumbles to life, a beat off. No one says a word the rest of the way, which makes Adam, at the time, both stupidly grateful and irrationally angry. But when they climb out of the Pig and step out onto the asphalt of the Aglionby parking lot ten minutes later, Gansey touches his wrist, fleeting enough that Adam can pretend it's an accident. 

As they enter the school, Ronan knocks into him, arm slung around his shoulders, fingers pressing onto the bare skin of his bicep like armour. Silent and defiant. Imposing.

Maybe already partly his, even then.

* * *

And there's this, some hundred-odd touches later: Ronan’s fingers slid across his collarbone, the weight of Adam’s body bearing down on his, pressing Ronan against the front porch pillar he'd been leaning on only a moment ago. And this: his _mouth_ , pliant and chapped and _there_ , finally there, in a very real way.

This, too: Ronan’s teeth, suddenly bared, hard against Adam’s lips until Adam realizes it’s a smile. He cups Adam’s face and kisses him, and keeps kissing him, until Adam has to come up for air, inhaling slow through his nose. Ronan’s hands settle at the small of his back. 

“Don’t freak out,” he breathes. Adam can't quite catch the tone of it so he just cants his head in question, eyes still shut. Ronan shuffles quietly closer.

One of his hands is at Adam's elbow now. Adam opens his eyes; his heart is beating wildly fast, but he's pretty sure it's not from nerves. Genuinely curious, he asks, “Am I supposed to? I can leave, if you want. Have a crisis about it alone in my room—”

“I hate you," Ronan says, laughing. "Oh, my God."

Adam tilts back. "No you don't."

"No, Ronan sighs. "I really don't."

* * *

Adam’s thought a year and a half later is that he will never get used to this. He's learned to mark his relationship with Ronan through touch: how it changed over time, how it lingered, how it settled him whenever his mind threatened to fall apart on him. Sometimes he tries to figure out when it became _more_ , overwhelming, Adam consumed with love for this boy, this man who touches him, gentle in a way he is with no one else, not even Gansey.

Right now Ronan's running a hand through Adam's hair as he comes in close, absentminded almost. His hand slides down to the small of Adam back and he bends, mouth pressed to Adam's temple. Adam smiles at his textbook even though he knows what's coming next.

“The baby has Declan’s smile,” Ronan says quietly, his touch leaving Adam. “Which is strike one.”

Adam, bereft suddenly, feigns a bored, "You don't even watch baseball," as he jots down a couple notes in the margin of a beat up, used textbook for his 200-level Political Theory course. Ronan huffs, so Adam does, at least, pick his head up to glance at the crumpled invitation in Ronan's hand, at the photo Declan'd sent along with its caption: _OPEN ME ASSHOLE. She can sit up on her own now._

The picture itself is of an infant - of Siobhán, Adam remembers - in a onesie patterned with monkeys, gummy smile on display. Halo of curly hair. Cute. Already very much a Lynch.

Adam's mouth twitches into a smile; Ronan pokes his cheek with his free hand.

"You need to sleep more," he says reproachfully as he carelessly tosses the phone onto the desk, which means Adam has bags under his eyes, or maybe ink on his face from falling asleep on his notes again during his hour-long library study break in between afternoon classes. 

(Ronan has been banned from joining Adam on these excursions. He stays in Adam's room now, or drives around town until he's out of class, mostly because Adam has little to no self-control when it comes to Ronan. Which, usually, means making out behind a shelf stacked precariously with dusty, ancient tomes - or defiling a designated quiet room in a way that was unfortunately not very quiet at all.)

Adam bats at his hand, but doesn't protest when Ronan shuts the textbook and shoves it to the side so he can pull himself up onto the edge of Adam's desk, tucked in the corner of his room. "I'm fine. You didn't seem to mind the whole not-sleeping thing last night."

Swiftly, Ronan aims a kick to his knee. " _You_ didn't seem to mind either, asshole."

Adam clicks the end of his pen and leans back in his seat. He really didn't. "It's almost Christmas. I'm sure Declan wants you to visit. You're an uncle," he explains, as if Ronan's forgotten in the five or so months since it's happened. "I think he'd like you to make an effort. It's not like they moved to Mars; he's in D.C."

He carefully neglects to mention that Declan himself hasn't been to the Barns since then, either, but he always tries to work the best line of argument in first, with Ronan. He might grow up to be a decent lawyer after all.

Ronan pulls a face. "Like I'd wanna see the kind of sprog he and Ashley managed to create."

It's a flat out lie. Adam knows it.

"She looks like your mother, Ronan," he replies softly. 

It’s a low blow, so he adds, careful and wry, "not that I've had any experience with this, but I've heard having a kid actually changes some people."

There's a pause. Ronan is scowling. 

He scoots towards the center of the desk, legs dangling on either side of Adam's chair. It's big, the desk. Stained a dark mahogany color, heavy and sturdy. Not IKEA. Not even secondhand. _Ronan_ bought it for him and, other than a brief bout of itchy anxiety that will always come from witnessing anyone spend over a hundred dollars on _anything_ , Adam let him without incident. And maybe with only one light, exasperated punch to the arm.

Currently, Ronan is both wrinkling the edges of Adam's various notebooks and tucking the toes of his socked feet under Adam's thighs. Adam clicks the end of his pen again, a few times. “You know he wants you there,” he says, soft, a hand falling to Ronan’s knee. 

“It’s just... too much,” Ronan tells him. “Too much bullshit.”

Adam lifts a shoulder in a lazy shrug and reaches out to tug at a stray thread from a rip in Ronan's jeans. “You know, there are easier ways for you to say you don't want to go with me.”

The indignant snort he gets in response is almost immediate. “You know that's not –whatever, just... You fucking fight dirty, you know that?" 

Adam lifts a shoulder in a lazy shrug and reaches out to tug at a stray thread from a rip in Ronan's jeans. He's still staring at the bare strip of Ronan's knee peeking out when Ronan sighs, "Fine. I'll go."

Victory. Adam smiles, small and close-mouthed, curls his finger under the rip and yanks. 

"But you're coming with me. Winter break starts next week for you, anyway."

And, really - it's not as if Adam would have ever let him go alone.

* * *

That Wednesday, Ronan makes the two and half hour drive from Henrietta to UVA to pick up Adam so they can take the drive to _D.C._ together. He brings along Chainsaw, and Matthew, of course - the latter beaming wide; Opal's with Blue for a few days.

The December chill gives Matthew's cheeks a cherubic flush, and he darts out of the car the moment Ronan puts it in park. Adam is shivering in front of his apartment in a thin, cotton shirt and only just manages to keep his feet planted as Matthew throws his arms around him with a boundless energy that Adam, at only nineteen, finds foreign.

"Hi! I'm so excited - she looked like a little blob last time I saw her, she's like a real person now. I can't wait to take pictures!"

Adam pets his hair. It feels as though they've struck a deal, even if he can't feel Cabeswater anymore. He's allowed to move on. To have the chance to be at school, to get out of his hometown. And it’s gone, but sometimes he thinks Cabeswater trusts he will always come back.

He still does a reading every morning, though, with a new deck of cards Blue gave him. They steady him the way Ronan does, he thinks.

"Yeah, of course," he answers, finally, and Matthew's smile grows before he makes his way inside.

Ronan follows, Chainsaw in a blanket in his arms. He darts a kiss to Adam's mouth as he goes, heads up the stairs muttering about getting in a nap and _some fucking lunch_ before they head out.

An hour later finds Matthew cross-legged in front of the TV, playing a game on the secondhand X-Box Adam had gotten in lieu of cable, crumbs in his lap from the sandwiches Adam made. He's all packed and ready, tells Matthew, "We're leaving in ten," gets a dazed _uh-huh_ in response, and then makes his way to his bedroom, where Ronan's asleep on top of the covers.

Adam hovers in the doorway, watching. Sometimes, he's amazed he's even here. Existing, happy and - he touches his left ear absentmindedly. Alive. 

That he's in a one bedroom in Charlottesville, a fifteen minute walk from campus, in an apartment decidedly bigger than his room above the church, and it's all his own. That Ronan is curled up on his bed in a borrowed UVA sweater because Adam's trying to keep the heat bill low this winter. That he even _has_ Ronan, and can wake him up right now if he wanted and, sure, Ronan would grumble and swear and probably call him an asshole, but he would also brush his thumb along the inside of Adam's wrist and pull him in, in, in with a faint smile building slow, brick-by-brick, at the corners of his mouth. He always looks so soft in Adam's bed, the sleeves of borrowed sweaters just hitting his wrists, a gentle pout to his mouth that only ever settles there in his sleep.

So much has changed in the two years since they found Glendower. They've grown. He knows this. They're not the same frightened kids they were when this all started, filled to the brim with biting anger and unsurities. When they made it out - alive, all of them, Gansey included, aside from Noah, who is was more collective figment than real boy when he left, who Adam misses fiercely, even now.

Adam made a promise to himself, after that. To be better, to _do_ better, and he thinks maybe he's finally getting the hang of it.

The hardwood is cool under his socked feet as he crosses the room and climbs onto the bed. Chainsaw caws quietly from where she's perched on Adam's bookshelf. Adam leans over Ronan with his hands planted and knees sunk into the mattress, brushing his mouth against Ronan's shoulder, and then buried at his neck, just under his ear. "Hey," he murmurs, and then louder: " _Hey_. It's almost three. I told Declan we'd get there before seven for dinner tonight."

Ronan's eyes are closed, but there's a wrinkle between his brows that wasn't there a moment ago, which is the only reason Adam knows he's awake. He, at least, doesn't insult Adam's intelligence by feigning unconsciousness. "Ten more minutes," he mumbles. "Didn't get any sleep yesterday."

"Nervous?"

"Fuck you," Ronan replies, easy, which means _Yes_. But he still turns his head and meets Adam halfway, and then reaches around blindly, awkwardly, eyes stubbornly shut, and tugs on Adam's forearm. He rolls to his side, lips briefly finding home at the thin skin of the inside of Adam's wrist. Adam's mouth picks up, unwitting.

Ronan turns onto his side. He keeps pulling impatiently on Adam's arm until Adam finally drops down with a sigh and slots in, right behind him. "Ten more minutes."

He pulls Ronan in close, arm slung low across his waist, nose against his nape. In the minutes it takes them to quiet, and settle, Adam realizes he could use a nap, too. Stifling a yawn, he closes his eyes and says, "And you think I play dirty."

Ronan picks up his hand and touches his mouth to Adam's knuckles.

“Sleep,” he says.

Adam blows a small raspberry against Ronan's neck, and last thing he hears before he drifts off is Ronan's laugh, just the softest of exhales, dream-like and happy.

* * *

They're two hours into the trip when Ronan lowers the noise pumping out of his car radio to a barely-there level and asks, "Want to listen to something else?" and, "Have you ever thought about having kids?"

It takes a minute of Adam scrolling through the music on Ronan's phone, attached by aux cord, before the second question manages to hit him. When he glances up, Ronan is staring straight out at the road.

"I know my hearing's shot on one side, but you did ask about kids, right?"

" _Yes_ , Parrish."

"Oh. Well."

Adam pauses. He hits shuffle, breathes out a sigh of relief when the song doesn't sound like one, long crash of chords and cymbals and screams. 

He doesn't know how to respond, exactly. _No_ , he's only nineteen, barely in his second year of college with his whole life ahead of him, and the boy he's dating already has a Chainsaw. _Yes_ , and he figured with _his_ childhood, it was better to give that kind of future up than to watch himself fail spectacularly like his father had before him. It's rare he gives the idea any more thought than when dealt in extremes. 

By way of answer, he shrugs. "You?"

Ronan glares at the steering wheel, and then at the road stretched out ahead of them. "I don't know," he says, and it's soft enough that Adam knows whatever comes out next will be quietly earnest, in Ronan's own way. "What if I'm bad at it?"

Adam thinks about Chainsaw and Matthew, both asleep in the backseat. Matthew with his head against the window, Chainsaw in a makeshift nest of backpacks, coats, and one of Ronan's old Aglionby sweaters. He thinks about Ronan at seventeen, cradling an ugly, fragile thing so, so carefully in his palm when she was hours, days, weeks old. He thinks about Ronan at three, dreaming such an innately _good_ human being into existence without so much as a migraine or nightmare.

"You wouldn't be," Adam says, decisive. Ronan stays silent for a beat too long, thrown off by the confidence in Adam's words, and then snorts.

"Well, if Adam fucking Parrish says so..."

Adam sinks a bit in his seat. "I do fucking say so."

They pass car after car as the music plays on. Chainsaw flutters her wings in her sleep. Ronan says, sort of frustrated, as though Adam's been arguing with him for the sake of it, "You're not your dad, Adam. You know that."

Adam doesn't open his eyes. He doesn't say what he's thinking, which is that becoming his dad would be his greatest disappointment. It just comes with the territory: you get raised by shitty parents, you tell yourself fiercely that you won't follow in their footsteps, you live in perpetual fear that you will anyway. 

"Yep," Adam sighs. "Haven't ruined anyone's life yet. Go me."

"I swear, I'm gonna dream you a kid just to fucking spite you and prove you wrong," Ronan snaps, but when Adam looks, the edge of Ronan's mouth he can see is soft.

Adam promptly says,"I'll name them Hacksaw," just for the thrill of watching Ronan's smile disarm itself, all teeth, the apples of his cheeks lifting. In the span of a breath, he looks like the boy Gansey used to tell him about, the one Adam gets more and more moments with.

He turns his attention to his passenger side window, to the landscape speeding past in one giant blur. Ronan shifts in his seat, and then reaches across the center console to slip his fingers between Adam's. 

Ronan squeezes his hand tight and doesn't let go until they pass the _Welcome to Washington, DC_ sign fifteen minutes later. Almost immediately, he pulls over to the side of the road. Ronan then leans in, real close, and kisses him. It's short, close-mouthed, and their noses brush afterwards, Adam only partly conscious of the movement after it's over. He lets his forehead drop onto Adam's shoulder and fiddles with the hem of his shirt. Adam draws a line down the center of his back, and then a heart.

"I'm not going to have sex in your brother's house just so you'll have this weird upper hand," he says, thankful that Matthew has his earbuds in, music blasting tinny. He makes a face when Adam looks at him, but he seems sort of happy, too. "Or in this car, once Matthew's not in it."

"Just once, Parrish," Ronan says, muffled, "I wish you'd live a little."

"I’ve lived plenty. At this point, I'd rather be able to look Ashley in the eye over breakfast, honestly.".

Ronan presses his face in harder.

"Are you in love with me?" he Asks, apropos of nothing, sudden and surprising.

Adam flattens his palm. With his mouth against Ronan's temple, he mumbles, heart beating hard, "That's a pretty stupid question, Lynch."

Ronan laughs. Then goes very quiet. 

And then he muses, “We never say it.”

None of them do, really. Adam has realized this over the years. But, he figures, there are some things you just feel, way deep down. He has never felt the way he does about Ronan - about Gansey, and Blue, and Noah - with anyone else. Not in a way that’s so completely right and so completely obvious. Never will. And, sure, they aren’t all in the same tiny, magical town anymore, but there are always new ways of living in each other’s pockets that have nothing to do with distance and everything to do with how you choose to close it.

“I know, anyway,” Adam says, because he does. Because he always has.

There is another long, muted moment. The pads of Ronan's fingers skim across his hip, and Adam will never admit it out loud, but he likes this RonanandAdam best.

Ronan hesitates. “I want to say it.”

Adam smiles. “Okay.”

Silence. Adam shifts, impatient. Maybe a little ansty, and glances at the car's clock.

"Anytime soon?"

Ronan snorts. “Well, not _now_. I’ll do it when you aren’t expecting it.” A hum, and then he adds thoughtfully, “Maybe when next time we argue something stupid.”

With a roll of his eyes, Adam says, “Right, ‘cause it’s not a Ronan Lynch Original if I don’t feel like pushing you afterwards.”

Ronan smiles against his shoulder. Fingers tapping against Adam's throat, the touch light and there, always there.

"Why,” Adam starts, mouth quirked at one end, “are you so annoying?”

Ronan huffs, a sweet sound hanging off the end of it, at the back of his throat, hand sliding up to Adam's hair. He's got a thing for it, Adam's pretty sure. Ronan swallows, then says, a little brave, “You love me, anyway.”

Adam's smile crackles in the air. The very tip of his nose brushes against Ronan's cheek.

“Definitely not,” he whispers, and kisses Ronan again.


End file.
